Approximately at the same time when the 4th "Letter from Afar" was being written, but probably after this letter was completed, Vladimir Ilyich began writing an article under the title "Revolution in Russia and the Tasks of the Workers of All Countries." According to Vladimir Ilyich's plan, this was apparently to be an address to the international proletariat in the name of the Central Committee of our party. The article remained unfinished and has not been published to this day. We are publishing it from the text preserved in the copy book, which has been described by us in the general preface to the documents being published.

6.

LENIN. REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA AND THE TASKS
OF THE WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES.

Comrade Workers!

The foresight of those socialists who remained true to socialism and did not succumb to the intoxication of wild, bestial military sentiment has been vindicated. The first revolution, born out of the worldwide banditry of capitalist war between capitalists of different countries, has broken out. The imperialist war — that is, a war over the division of plundered booty among capitalists, over the strangulation of weak peoples — has begun to transform itself into a civil war, that is, a war of workers against capitalists, a war of the toiling and oppressed against their oppressors, against tsars and kings, against landowners and capitalists, a war for the complete liberation of humanity from wars, from the poverty of the masses, from the oppression of man by man!

Russian workers have fallen heir to the honor and happiness of being the *first* to begin the revolution, that is, the great, the only legitimate and just, war of the oppressed against their oppressors.

The Petrograd workers defeated the tsarist monarchy. In heroic struggle against the police and tsarist troops, beginning an unarmed uprising against machine guns, the workers won over to their side the greater part of the soldiers of the Petrograd garrison. The same occurred in Moscow and other cities. Abandoned by his troops, the tsar was forced to surrender: he signed his abdication from the throne both for himself and his son. He proposed transferring the throne to his brother Michael.

Thanks to the enormous speed of the overthrow, thanks to direct assistance from Anglo-French capitalists, thanks to the insufficient consciousness of the entire working and popular masses in Petrograd, thanks to the organization and preparedness of Russian landowners and capitalists, they seized state power into their own hands. In the new Russian government, the "Provisional Government," the *most important positions* — the chairmanship, the ministry of internal affairs, and the military ministry — fell to Lvov and Guchkov, Octobrists, who had assisted Bloody Nicholas and the Hangman Stolypin with all their might in strangling the 1905 revolution, in shooting and hanging workers and peasants who fought for land and freedom. Less important ministries fell to the Cadets: Foreign Affairs to Milyukov, Public Enlightenment to Manuylov, Agriculture to Shingarev. And one completely unimportant post, the Ministry of Justice, was given to the Laborite Kerensky, a windbag, who is useful to the capitalists to lull the people with empty promises, to deceive it with sonorous phrases, to "reconcile" it with the landowner and capitalist government, which desires to continue the bandit war in alliance with the capitalists of England and France — a war for the seizure of Armenia, Constantinople, Galicia — a war so that Anglo-French capitalists can *keep* in their hands the booty which they seized from German capitalists (all the German colonies in Africa), and at the same time *seize* from German capitalists the booty captured by these robbers (part of France, Belgium, Serbia, Romania, etc.).

Of course, the workers could not trust such a government. The workers overthrew the tsarist monarchy, fighting for peace, for bread, and for freedom. The workers immediately felt why Guchkov, Milyukov and Co. managed to snatch victory from the working people? Because the Russian landowners and capitalists were well prepared and organized; because on their side stands the force of capital, the *wealth* of Russian capitalists and the richest capitalists in the whole world — the English and French. The workers immediately understood that in order to fight for peace, for bread, and for freedom, the toiling classes, workers, soldiers, and peasants, must *organize themselves*, unite, *consolidate separately from capitalists and against them*.

And the Petrograd workers, having defeated the tsarist monarchy, immediately created their own organization, the Soviet of Workers' Deputies, immediately began to strengthen and expand it, to create *independent* Soviets of Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. Within a few days already after the revolution, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies numbered *over 1,500* deputies from workers and peasants dressed in soldiers' uniforms. This Soviet enjoyed such trust among railroad workers and all the mass of the toiling population that it began to transform itself into a true *popular government*.

And even the most loyal friends and patrons of Guchkov—Milyukov, the most faithful watchdogs of Anglo-French bandit capital, Robert Wilson, a contributor to the richest newspaper of English capitalists "The Times," and Charles Rivière, a contributor to the richest newspaper of French capitalists "Le Temps," even they, while heaping furious abuse upon the Soviet of Workers' Deputies, were nonetheless forced to acknowledge that in Russia there are two governments. One — "recognized by all" (that is, in reality recognized by all *rich* people) — the government of landowners and capitalists, the Guchkovs and Milyukovs. The other — "recognized by none" (of the rich classes) — the government of workers and peasants: the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, striving to establish throughout *all Russia* Soviets of Workers and Soviets of Peasants' Deputies.

Let us see then what both these governments say and what they do.

1. *What is the government of landowners and capitalists doing, the government of Lvov—Guchkov—Milyukov?*

This government distributes the most magnificent promises to the right and to the left. It promises the Russian people the fullest freedom. It promises to convene a nationwide Constituent Assembly, which would establish the form of government in Russia. Kerensky and the Cadet leaders declare themselves supporters of a democratic republic. In the matter of theatrical revolutionism, the Guchkovs—Milyukovs are incomparable. The publicity machine is working at full capacity. But what are their *deeds*?

While promising freedoms, the new government in fact entered into negotiations with the tsarist family, with the dynasty, about the restoration of the monarchy. It proposed to Michael Romanov to become regent—that is, a temporary tsar. The monarchy would already have been restored in Russia if the Guchkovs and Milyukovs had not been prevented by the workers, who organized processions in Piter and wrote on their banners: "Land and Freedom! Death to Tyrants!" — who, together with cavalry troops, gathered in the square in front of the Duma and unfurled banners with the inscription: "Long live the socialist republic in all countries!" The ally of the Guchkovs-Milyukovs, Michael Romanov, guessed that under such circumstances it would be more prudent to refuse, until he be elected to the throne by the Constituent Assembly, and Russia remained — for the time being — a republic.

The government left the former tsar at liberty. The workers forced his arrest. The government wanted to give all command of the army to Nicholas Nikolayevich Romanov. The workers forced his removal. It is clear that the landowners Lvov-Guchkov would have made a deal with Romanov or with another landowner tomorrow, were it not for the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.

The government declared both in its manifesto to the people and in Milyukov's telegram to all representatives of Russia abroad that it *remains* faithful to all international treaties concluded by Russia. These treaties were concluded by the overthrown tsar. The government does not dare publish these treaties, first, because it is bound hand and foot by Russian, English, and French capital; and second, because it fears the people, who would tear to pieces the Guchkovs and Milyukovs if they learned that still another 5, or 10 million Russian workers and peasants the capitalists want to have slaughtered in war for the conquest of Constantinople, for the strangulation of Galicia, and so on.

What are these promises of freedom worth, if the people cannot learn the truth about what treaties of the landowner-tsar the capitalists want to use to spill still more blood of soldiers?

What are the worth of promises of all sorts of liberties and even a democratic republic for people threatened with famine and whom they want to lead blindfolded to the slaughter so that Russian, English, and French capitalists can plunder German capitalists?

And at the same time the government of Guchkovs and Milyukovs directly suppresses by violence every attempt by Russian workers to communicate with their brothers, the workers of other countries: neither the newspaper "Pravda," which began to appear in Petrograd again after the revolution, nor the Manifesto of the Central Committee of our party, the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, published in Piter, nor the appeals of deputy Chkheidze and his group — the government does *not permit* to leave Russia!!

Workers and peasants! You may be at peace: you were promised freedom — freedom for the dead, perished from hunger and slaughtered in war!

*Not a word* about land for the peasants, *not a word* about a wage increase for the workers has the new government said in its programs. No date for the convening of the Constituent Assembly has been set. No elections to the Petrograd City Duma have been announced. The popular militia is placed under the authority of the zemstvos and city councils elected under Stolypin's law by capitalists and the richest landowners alone. Governors are appointed from among the landowners — there is your "freedom"!

2. *What is the government of workers and peasants doing and what must it do?*

[The manuscript breaks off here.]